What can you expect?

Element Talks tames monsters like finances, negotiations or copyright. The speakers share their successes and failures, show the backstage of the designer's profession, how they work, how they cooperate and how they stay designers without loosing their souls.

You'll meet other designers and speakers during the networking sessions, e.g. Speed Dates or Discussion Tables. It's a great chance to make new business relations, friendships or to exchange experiences.

You can also meet new people during one of many workshops we have prepared for you.

our past speakers

Pentagram - Luke Hayman

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Pentagram - Luke Hayman

The business of Pentagram // Saturday, godz. 18:00–18:45

Pentagram is a large multi disciplinary design firm with five offices in Europe and the USA. Their model is different from almost every other large design agency in that they have no CEO, all partners are creatives and they are equal. Luke will explain how it works.

Originally from London, Luke has been a partner at Pentagram's New York office for over 9 years. As a graphic designer, he works on magazines, books, identities, websites and many other forms of communication.

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Anton & Irene

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Anton & Irene

Anton Repponen and Irene Pereyra climbed their way from junior designers to founders of their own studio. Their studio Anton & Irene is known well beyond Brooklyn and their projects are not limited to web-design. In their portfolio you will find projects for Karim Rashid, Nickelodeon, BBC, Balenciaga, Wacom, National Geographic, USA Today and Red Bull, as well as self-initiated projects like a walking tour of New York City, and an analog wristwatch. They have more than a dozen of prestigious awards including Webby, Emmy, Red Dot, .NET and Cannes Lions.

Nearly every designer after a few years of working for a studio, begins to think about starting his or her own business. Anton & Irene will talk about transforming a small studio into a hyper successful project and share their experience including all the achievements and failures they went through on their way to the top.

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Vasava - Bruno Sellés

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Vasava - Bruno Sellés

In this session Bruno Sellés, Creative director of Barcelona’s based graphic design studio Vasava, will reveal his thoughts about how to successfully build a design firm, create a team ethos, and keep yourself inspired and ready for the next challenge.

Since 1997 he is founder and creative director of Barcelona based design studio Vasava. As a cross-media studio, they develop projects of an impressive wide scope of disciplines ranging from branding, custom typography, illustration, interactive design and animation.

Vasava's passion for the craft shines through everything they do and this has become sought after by brands like Nike, Adobe, Diesel, Mango, Budweiser, Comme des Garçons, FC Barcelona or Washington Post.

Bruno has designed several commercial font families as Synopsis or Matchpoint distributed by MyFonts, and custom tailor-made fonts for brands as Football Club Barcelona or fashion brand Mango.

Bruno believes in passion, talent and commitment in support of creativity and continually push the boundaries of visual communication. He has spoke in design conferences and schools worldwide, in cities like Seoul, NYC, Los Angeles, Stockholm, Beijing, and Buenos Aires.

He teaches regularly in Master of Art Direction in Elisava and Blanquerna Universities in Barcelona.

He is married to photographer Leila Mendez and are the parents of a 8 years old girl. In his spare time he likes to cultivate their current obsessions ranging from cooking the perfect stew, vintage maps, indie comic or South American music, though this may change at any time ...

Studio Dumbar is an international agency with a Dutch heritage, specialising in visual branding and online branding.

Studio Dumbar attracts talented individuals from around the world. On average, there are 5 different nationalities and cultures in the team.

The portfolio is equally diverse, encompassing work for a variety of clients both large and small – from business and government to cultural and non-profit.

Projects span from the Dutch Police visual identity, Amsterdam Sinfonietta poster series, the non profit organization Alzheimer Nederland and the Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis visual identity to the complete rebranding of the airline Transavia.

Liza Enebeis

Liza has been with Studio Dumbar since 2008 and is partner and Creative Director.

She is directly involved with all main projects such as the visual identity for the Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis, Amsterdam Sinfonietta and NGO Alzheimer Nederland.

Following her studies at the Royal College of Art in London, where she received her Masters, she began her career at Pentagram in London, where she remained for several years. In 2003 she relocated to The Netherlands.

She also has a few ‘extra curricular’ activities which include: Letters to LoveLiza – an ‘agony aunt’ column where Liza dispenses wit and advice to designers all over the world; Design Rhymes – a series of pathetic poems about design; Books LoveLiza – an ongoing catalogue of images and reviews inspired by her bibliophilic tendencies; and Typeradio.org – a popular typography and design podcast channel which she co-founded and co-hosts.

Wouter Dirks

Wouter chose a different path than his group of graffiti friends: instead of a design education he studied Business Administration at the Erasmus university in Rotterdam. He began his career as a project manager for print projects and then moved on to work for Fabrique (a Dutch online agency). Combining the left and right side of his brain, he now works for Studio Dumbar as senior project manager but also as online strategist. He develops online concepts for clients such as Boskalis, the Dutch Police and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University School of Design and also manages complex identity projects along the way. But thats not all, he recently co-founded Whitestone, a movement that redefines the way we experience music online.

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Werner Puchert – Deloitte Digital

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Werner Puchert – Deloitte Digital

Breakfast with the CEO // Sunday, godz. 17:00–17:45

Design as a discipline is evolving by the day and unlocking alternative ways for companies to do business. Young bright-eyed designers are fining their way into the boardrooms of big corporations to deal with a whole new type of and much more senior client. We call them the C-suite. Careful consideration has to be given how we engage with those responsible for making key business decisions and carry the responsibly of a whole enterprise. Werner will share some thoughts on this subject after his transition from advertising to the world of consulting and his experience dealing with a whole new set of tough clients. - ‘Breakfast with the CEO’

Werner Puchert joined the vibrant Polish design community from South Africa. He has a National Diploma in Fine Arts and B.SCDegree in Computer Science, qualifications that led him to and establish a career in advertising and digital agency networks for the past 14 years. He started as developer but soon swapped 'lines of code' for ‘human beings’ to focus on User Experience Design, Digital Strategy and Service Design for clients like Standard Bank (one of the top four Banks in South Africa), McDonalds, Adidas, Visa and Nissan.

IKEA - Monika Olejnik

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IKEA - Monika Olejnik

Cooperation and development in commercial team // Sunday, godz. 10:00–10:45

What's it like to be a designer in a company which aims at inspiring Polish customers to furnish their homes? What challenges do they face working in a commercial team, where one of their key responsibilities is to sell products on a mass scale? Which skills are worth developing to address the needs of contemporary market? How stirring imagination and encouraging development may have impact on team success and what makes it a day-to-day challenge?Monika Olejnik is an interior designer, both by profession and passion, in her spare time taking interest also in economics and psychology. For a dozen of years she's been professionally involved with marketing and sales, and in last couple of years she's been working with IKEA Retail, where she operates in commercial field and shares the responsibility with a team of designers for the exposition of assortment and the image of the IKEA shops in Poland.

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Michał Śliwiński

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Michał Śliwiński

Michael Śliwiński is an efficiency pro. He created time and task managing application - Nozbe, without which there would be no Element Talks! He also issues a free magazine on productivity - Productive! Magazine. He also submits episodes of "The Podcast" on weekly basis with one of his co-workers. He is the author of the book "It's All About Passion" and a co-author of "#iPadOnly" - a book about working solely on iPad.

Michał will talk about how to organise our tasks, projects and deadlines in order to use the time optimally. He will present tricks which everyone can use in their work. He will talk about management of team work, both in a fixed team working together long-term and in a team which builds itself around a specific project.

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Zuzanna Skalska

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Zuzanna Skalska

The consciousness of change // Sunday, godz. 11:00–11:45

Trend researcher in design, innovation and business. For 16 years she has been analysing trends for companies and innovation. Co-organizer of Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven and a lecturer in the Department of Industrial Design at Eindhoven University of Technology, at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw, Parsons the New School for Design in New York. She is also a co-creator of Poznań-based School of Form.

Zuzanna Skalska will talk about how the openness to trends, changes in technology and environment can influence our career choices, what changes the future will bring and what we, designers, can get from them. What are the most wanted skills?

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Roman Łoziński - Deloitte

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Roman Łoziński - Deloitte

A different world // Saturday, godz. 16:00–16:45

Strategy director in Ars Thanea agency with over 15 years of experience in sales and advertising. Chairs Young Creatives Eurobest 2015 Jury. Cannes Lions finalist in the category of Innovation in 2013. Worked for brands such as Coca Cola, Heineken, LG Electronics, Whirlpool, Volkswagen. Passionate about psychology and behavioral economics, conduct academic research in the field of behavior in a competitive environment. Lecturer in the fields of psychology of advertising and advertising in new media.

Roman will talk about how advertising agencies work on Polish market from both practical and idealistic points of view. The participants will get to know when it is worth to give everything they can at work and when to run. Those who haven't started the journey with advertising will have a chance to see if it's something for them.

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Wydawnictwo Dwie Siostry

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Wydawnictwo Dwie Siostry

How to piss off the publisher? // Saturday, godz. 11:00–11:30

One of the best publishing houses in Poland which puts a lot of emphasis on promotion of Polish authors and illustrators. Their priority is to publish books that are beautiful, wise and evocative.

Ewa Stiasny and Katarzyna Domańska will present the process of book creation from the publisher's perspective. They will talk about what they expect from a designer and what the liaison between the publisher and creator should look like.

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Michał Łojewski

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Michał Łojewski

Tenders - the untold story // Saturday, godz. 12:00–12:45

Co-founder and creative director of White Cat studio and UEG fashion brand. He is one of the most often awarded Polish designers, the winner of Red Dot Award and European Design Awards. Michał liaises with the biggest corporations in the country. The author of famous rebrandings such as Netia, PZU, Filmweb.

Michał will talk about the rules of tenders. For whom the tenders are and how to start taking part in them? What are the good practices in the field, what can you agree to, and to what you should not and what you should watch out for.

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Jan Bajtlik

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Jan Bajtlik

How to tame the publisher? // Saturday, godz. 11:30–12:00

Jan Bajtlik (born 1989), master’s degree in Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in 2013, freelance graphic designer and illustrator based in Warsaw. He is a lecturer in graphic department at the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology in Warsaw. He’s been creating children’s books, posters, illustrations, visuals identifications for cultural events. He created illustrations for „Time Magazine” and “The New York Times” among others. He has conducted a lot of typography workshops for children. He has received numerous awards in national and international graphic competitions, including a silver medal at the 10th International Poster Triennial in Toyama (Japan). He is the author of an activity book about typography for children "Typogryzmol" (Dwie Siostry Publishing, 2014). Book was awarded special mention Bologna Ragazzi Award 2015 and it has just been published in English as “Alphadoodler” by Tate Modern. He is a keen traveler and rock climber.

Janek will talk about liaison with a publisher from a rookie designer's perspective. How to get the attention of a publisher and how to take care of collaboration well?

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Joanna Zabawa

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Joanna Zabawa

How to become a unicorn, or be the graphic designer they always dreamed of // Saturday, godz. 13:00–13:45

Joanna Zabawa has liaised with NGOs, startups and corporations in a multitude of ways. At the moment she is a project coordinator and designer at PZU. In her free time she is working on her PhD at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw and watching Marvel's films (when nobody's looking).

Joanna will talk about what you need to know if you want to get onboard of a team which makes big projects for renowned brands. She will discuss how to prepare yourself for starting, maintaining and ending a liaison with a company in order to be re-invited to work on next projects. We will decipher enigmatic acronyms and names connected to project methodology, create maps of communication and talk about the language you should use to be understood.